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Culturegasm: NeoPulp usertesting

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      CommentAuthoradamatsya
    • CommentTimeDec 11th 2007 edited
     (264.1)
    Happy for this to be deleted for any possible infringement along the lines of self-aggrandisement of off-topicness, but if not:

    I've been playing about with a faux-genre called NeoPulp for a while. Wrote a Manifesto to outline what I was trying to do with a novel I'm writing. Then I wrote some short stories in response to the manifesto. Had it published a couple of times in literary and academic places. I think it still needs some work, maybe.

    Being the smart and keyed-in folk you Whitechapelers are, I thought I'd see what kind of holes you can pick in the ideas, &c. A sort of beta-test, so to speak. So far it's only really gone up against literary types, non-genre connoisseurs and such. Love to know what genre reading types made of it.

    The NeoPulp ManiFesto.

    Ta in advance.
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      CommentAuthorhyim
    • CommentTimeDec 11th 2007
     (264.2)
    That was incredibly interesting. Something I felt was missing from the manifesto though -probably me not picking it up on a cold read- is what the genre is about, what does it stand for.
    Steampunk for example brings the beauty of human progress , innovation, into the mind (technology happens with a shift of thinking, what if 20th century shifts happened during the victorian age blah blah). naturalistic science fiction shows us that human condition does not change, we will be the same with our flaws even when using black holes as energy wells while we do not dream in cryosleep and other hogwash. Medieval fantasy is all about the nuclear group changing the world and Westerns are all about the law, its absence, abeyance or arrival, and what behaviours are possible without or outside it.

    of course you can explore everything in a genre. Heart of darkness is a skewed adventure story for example, and there are thousand of interpretation of what a genre can say. The point of a manifest is to point the way .

    Of course you do say neoPulp is not pigeonholed in a genre, or sub-genre, which might be a motivational statement rather than part of neoPulp's genome.

    the only line in the manifesto I saw that sounded like the essence was this one :

    NeoPulp is born of a love and admiration for the flawed nature of pulp culture.


    the flawed nature of pulp (popular) culture now that's a fascinating corpse to dissect.
    A dissection that was expertly done in Ellis' Planetary (probably his masterpiece, even if Fell readers tend to disagree ^_^ )
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      CommentAuthoradamatsya
    • CommentTimeDec 17th 2007
     (264.3)
    yeah, it's a good point.

    my motivation has changed over the years - initially it was a kind of attempt to "literaryise" genre fiction conventions, but now I think a more honest appraisal might be that it was and is a way for me to write the lovely crazy genre soup that you see done so effortlessly in comics, but to write it in poetry and prose instead. the essence for me is the bit about a dash of paradise lost, a pinch of godzilla all mixed up in the bhagavad gita. genre-blending, I guess.

    since starting the manifesto I've started messing about with comic scripts a bit more, so I'm not sure where I stand these days. sometimes it just seems like a collection of obvious statements.
  4.  (264.4)
    NeoPulp places realistically-defined characters into fantastic situations. It avoids the two-dimensional characterisation of pulp fiction while embracing every aspect of its subject material.

    This is something I've been toying with recently, I'm currently trying to build an ongoing (comic) series around this is my spare time.

    The manifesto is very interesting. I think, in a way, religious texts, when viewed post-humously (if you catch my drift), are to a large extent, and on a very large (maybe even broad) scale, similar to the idea of NeoPulp. Whether intentional or not, the flawed human psyche is the basis on which these are constructed, while placed in a massive context of surreal and unbelievable tales. Apply that with intent, and you have very interesting work...
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      CommentAuthorAlan Tyson
    • CommentTimeDec 25th 2007
     (264.5)
    A quite thoughtful piece of work. I like that it emphasizes the literary amongst all the swashbuckling Tesla-crackling adventure.
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      CommentAuthorConojito
    • CommentTimeDec 27th 2007 edited
     (264.6)
    Some good points in here, and I wish I'd read it yesterday, in light of the new TV version of Charles Dicken's The Old Curiosity Shop, which was so noir it hurt. Interested parties should also check out the adaptation of Philip Pullman's The Shadow In The North, screening on the 30th December. Here's a quick precis from the BBC website...

    An elderly lady loses her money on an investment, a conjuror is pursued by thugs, a clairvoyant sees a brutal murder in a forest, a glass coffin then whispers the name of the richest man in Europe.

    These seemingly unconnected events set Sally Lockhart on the trail of an evil far more awful than she could ever imagine – the Hopkinson Self-Regulator – a super-weapon in the hands of a Scandinavian madman, Axel Bellmann!


    Can't WAIT.
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      CommentAuthorJay Kay
    • CommentTimeDec 27th 2007
     (264.7)
    I dig the living hell out of this Manifesto, man. It seems to be exactly what I've been trying to write and publish in the past few years.
  8.  (264.8)
    You should, perhaps, take into account that pulp fiction was written incredibly fast.
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      CommentAuthoradamatsya
    • CommentTimeJan 7th 2008
     (264.9)
    You should, perhaps, take into account that pulp fiction was written incredibly fast.


    That is an amazingly insightful and helpful point, Warren. And to back that up, I should point out that my attempt at writing a NeoPulp novel has been incredibly slow. Seven years and counting. That whole writing fast thing is something that I just don't have - at this point in time anyway.

    You're a fast writer yourself - how do you maintain your speed? Or is that too unanswerable a question? Is it about having the time to write, or about making the time to write? And is it easier now you're a paid writer than it was when you were carving your path at the start? Or is speed something you can teach yourself?

    Thanks for the responses, all - nice to know that there's stuff that can resonate in there.
  10.  (264.10)
    You're a fast writer yourself - how do you maintain your speed?

    By looking at my bills.

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